‘Overwatch’ Director Jeff Kaplan Says Dealing With Fans Can Be ‘Scary’

No matter what a game developer does in a game, it is never enough for some fans. The interesting thing about Blizzard’s popular multi-player shooter Overwatch, is that the creative team led by Jeff Kaplan don’t hide and are out in the open and willing to talk to fans. However, in a recent post on the Blizzard message boards, Kaplan said that can be very “scary” sometimes.

Jeff Kaplan’s Message

There was a thread that devolved into some posters on the Blizzard Overwatch message board complaining about recent changes that the company had implemented over the last few months. Many of the changes included punishing toxic players and balancing out the characters in the game.

When someone said that the people at the top were not qualified to make the calls, that is when Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan finally responded. The first thing that Kaplan said was that there were 70 developers when the game launched, including game designers, producers, engineers, artists, and music people.

Since the launch of Overwatch, Jeff Kaplan said that there are now over 100 people working on the Overwatch team. While Kaplan said that he thinks the team is the right size, he did point out that there are still job openings on the Blizzard website.

Jeff Kaplan then acknowledged that there is not one single person that dictates what they do when it comes to Overwatch changes and policies. They also don’t cater to “corporate overlords” who tell them what they have to do.

Kaplan admitted that they don’t do everything right, but the Overwatch team itself is more critical than almost any fan. However, Kaplan then pointed out that they are just more professional about how they express their criticism at what isn’t working.

Jeff Kaplan said that they are serious about making sure that everything in the game is fair for all players and work hard to keep integrity intact, produce rules that makes gameplay fun and fair, and keeps all 26 heroes equally powerful.

After that, Kaplan said that they choose to use their real names and speak to gamers directly, which he said is “scary” because there are mean people out there who try to intimidate them. However, he finished by saying that they love getting feedback when it’s constructive and they will work to make sure the best updates are made for the Overwatch community.

Kaplan’s Openness With The Overwatch Community

The one thing that Overwatch players can count on is Jeff Kaplan being open and honest with them. It was just two weeks ago that Kaplan announced a new punishment system for toxic players. This will suspend players — possibly permanently — who are caught cheating or disrupting gameplay.

It is interesting that these comments about the Overwatch team becoming incompetent came after these punishments started. Most the players who frequent the Blizzard Overwatch boards remain thankful for Jeff Kaplan’s hard work. The rest can just wait for him to respond to them when comments get out of control.

[Featured Image by Blizzard]